Erik Sieurin
> I read a little Elder Secrets recently and noticed the following:
> There seem to be no Gloranthan equivalent to zink. However, there is
> a metal/alloy in Glorantha close enough to be "translated" as "brass"
> - the metal of the Brass Dwarves.
True. Note that elemental zink wasn't known among the mint metals, either, nor was arsene, still both had been known as ingredients for alloys. The old German name for brass, "galmei", is the name used for a variety of zinc ores.
> Earthly Brass is copper+some zink.
> What about Gloranthan Brass, and what about its magical abilities?
I'd propose it's copper, plus some ore noone ever bothered to refine as a pure metal.
Gloranthan Brass definitely is an alloy - after all, brass dwarfs are the alloyists of the Decamony. Copper as main component seems to work out, too.
> Some suggestions:
> 1. Gloranthan Brass just like Gloranthan Bronze - it can be
> produced by mixing the equivalents of copper and zink, but also mined
> as it is.
I feel that while it is possible to mine brass _ore_, there should be no brass metal available from natural ressources. If there was, why should the brass caste be alloyists?
> However, there are no zink mines within human reach -
> perhaps some brass mines, but no zink. This is because zink is rare -
> it is the bones of some god that either did not die very much, or was
> swallowed by Chaos whole, or something like that.
I don't buy that. Even if we revive the early (and IMO simplistic) God Learner theories of the Burtae or Younger Gods sprung from the mixture of the elements, we'd swim in all kind of strange alloy bones lying around. The Only Old One's bones (were they taken and exhibited in the City of Wonders?) would be an alloy of copper and lead (which I cannot recall, from real earth). Pewter, an alloy of lead and tin, would be quite impossible on Glorantha because Sky/Light and Darkness don't mix well. Unless you define tin as Sky tainted by Darkness - which would make it Xentha's metal rather than Dayzatar's, which is ok with my white gold hypothesis below. Water would be more dominant than any other metal except iron (which doesn't amalgamate) and silver (which strikes even in amalgamation, producing a silvery metal of limited ductility once left in a form).
So, if we buy the Gods' Bones theory of metals (a God Learner theory, never presented as an undeniable truth even in Elder Secrets) we would have to use the God Learner view to define the deities of Zinc. Since the elements are used up to define metals (in fact we suffer from over-definition), there still are the Powers. Silver to Life/Fertility, iron to Death, the other six Powers are still free. Hmm, Truth for tin? It screams when it is bent, and crumbles to dust if getting too cold (on earth, that is - how about Glorantha?), and Dayzatar has it. Then, with my music association below, zinc might be connected to Harmony? That leaves us with four Powers to define - nah, too much work.
> 2. Gloranthan Brass is the Hot Gold I theorized about earlier -
> the metal of Fire as gold is the metal of Light. You get Brass by
> separating the Hot and the Light Gold alchemically, thereby
> producing the Enchanted, glowing gold as well.
I disagree, because I found another nifty magic for brass. Looking around for uses of brass in our world (apart from small change) I met acoustic applications - chimes and trumpets of all sizes and forms. Therefore I propose that enchanted brass gains the flexibility of Gloranthan bronze, and as a bonus doubles all sound-generating magical or other effects.
> Brass is clearly connected with heat
Any metal is, except possibly 24k gold (which can be beaten into almost any shape desired, provided its flat and sheet-formed...).
For your shades of gold I'd like to relegate you to the three 18k gold alloys: red, yellow and white. Yellow gold is the standard gold we know (75% Au, 17% Ag, 8% Cu on earth), with both light and fire abilities. White gold (75% Au, 17% Ag, 8% Ni - should be tin on Glorantha, since tin is associated with sky) is the cool light metal, and red gold (75% Au, 17% Cu, 8% Ag) is the fire without much light gold.
On Glorantha, each of these three variants of gold might exist as rune metals, and be associated with the various offspring of Aether. Tin might retain its sky connection, though, this would explain bronze for Storm. Or might be shown as a God Learner construct without actual truth, just to prove Bertalor's theories.
> as it is the metal of the
> dwarven class of alloyists, who also are those who keep fires and
> forges burning as they should. I always assumed it was they who
> produced metals from the ores mined by the Rock Dwarves as well.
I'd put this into the hands of all metal producing castes - brass, bronze, and iron. Each of their specialities require vastly different techniques for refinement - bronze probably the least to produce the raw metal, the (other) alloys need well-defined mixtures (bronze has a fairly large range of tolerance for the amount of tin mixed in; brass for instance comes in chemically well-defined compounds which crystalize differently from copper - bronze doesn't). Iron is the hardest to produce metal from the ore, the metal of death demands large amounts of dead (and still specially treated) plants (charcoal) to leave its ore state.
Which always brings me back to Gloranthan bronze working: while it is ok that one can obtain and work it like the ancient Egyptians obtained and worked iron, I feel that for actual quality smithing of bronze complicated tempering and hardening processes are required. So everybody can carve a fully functional bronze tool out of a bronze bone, perfectly tempered and hardened, but to carve an identical item from a lump of molten bronze should produce a vastly inferior tool. I want smiths to have to beat the red hot metal, walk with a stoop, and all the other semi-mystical stuff smiths are associated with.
(I sometimes wonder whether the dwarfs from myth are just the image of the stooped smith transferred to non-human powers...)
Hmm, while I am at the matter of God Learner Runic connections, has anybody ever stumbled across the disorder of the seasons when compared to mythic sequence as defined in the Monomyth?
The Monomyth has:
Darkness - Sea - Earth - Sky - Storm - Darkness (again) - Chaos -
Compromise - Time
The Theyalan year has:
Sea - Fire - Earth - Darkness - Storm - Compromise (=Sacred Season)
The Theayalan week has:
Darkness - Sea - Earth - Storm - Fire - Wild (Chaos?) - Gods (Compromise?)
I just wonder how this discord would influence longer ceremonies, like for instance the Short Lightbringers' Quest, or the Seven Year Build-up previous to the Battle of Four Arrows of Light, the three-year preparation for the Skyburn, the five year preparation for the Moonburn, or the four year preparation for the Sartar Temple of the Reaching Moon (begun in 1621, almost finished in 1625).
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